Tennis hopes to excel in new league, sets early goals for season

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With conditioning workouts, three hour long practices, and voluntary workouts on the weekends, the boys tennis team is working hard everyday towards their ultimate goal of CIF.

“This season has been a definite change from the years before,” junior Andy Fray said. “We are spending a lot of time on fitness instead of focusing exclusively on skills like we did for the last couple of seasons.”

The boys team started the pre-league season with a losing record of 1-3, but once games began in their new league, the team took a turn for the better and currently have a 4-1 league record.

“The new league is extremely beneficial to us because of our training situation,” Fray said. “Not many people on our team have been playing since they were kids, and all the teams in our old league had. It was really a level playing field to start with.”

The varsity team has 12 players who rotate playing depending on how each member performed in the games before and that week’s practices.

“It really pushes the kids to succeed in practice,” coach Jim Wrage said. “When they know that it is essential for the practices to go well in order to play, they are always on top of their game.”

On Tuesday, the boys played Valley Center, their toughest opponents in league and lost the entire match in total games.

"We lost by 3 games overall,” junior Shuyang Fang said. “Singles won one set overall out of nine and doubles won eight of their nine.”

Winning in total games happens when the teams both end up with the same number of winning sets, and the entire match has to be determined by individual games.

The team has four more weeks of league play before they begin league playoffs and CIF competition.

“Out first goal was to just get to CIF,” Frey said. “But now, as we are improving, we are hoping to get to semi-finals, at least.”

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